The present invention concerns an electrical connector comprising a plurality of inputs and a plurality of outputs electrically interconnected by means of spaced electrical conductors mounted on an electrically insulative surface.
The electrical connector with which the invention is concerned is intended particularly for high bit rate network jacks in which the conductors carry electrical signals at frequencies above 1 MHz.
These jacks are of the "telephone jack" or RJ45 type. Examples of such jacks are described in FR-A-2 694 456 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,647. These jacks comprise a jack body that is mounted on a chassis or a wall-mounting box. The jack body includes a base plate provided with wire contacts adapted to make the connection to a complementary plug.
For signals at frequencies below 1 MHz, cross-talk is compensated by transposition of the conductors connected to the base plate, i.e. by twisting them in pairs. However, cross-talk compensation is insufficient when the frequency of the signal exceeds 1 MHz and it is necessary to compensate it at the level of the contacts in the jacks and therefore to cross the inputs and the outputs over in pairs.
In the case of RJ45 type jacks, the standard arrangement establishes the following correspondence between the contact points of the inputs and the outputs:
1-A, 2-B, 3-F, 4-D, 5-E, 6-C, 7-G, 8-H, the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 corresponding to the outputs of the connector and the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H to the inputs.
With a view to compensating cross-talk patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,647 teaches the crossing over of conductors in the form of uninsulated wires in an area in which the wires are parallel.
This solution necessitates the production of conductors provided with crossover areas in the region in which they are retained in the insulation and requires the insulation to be provided with multiple separator partitions. This solution is difficult to implement for crossing over non-contiguous wires.
The aim of the present invention is to remedy this drawback.